


Cutting Yellow Cation Tape

by EvilMuffins



Category: Dangan Ronpa, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Pre-Game Amami Rantaro, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Pre-Game Saihara Shuichi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22410115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: “Saihara Shuuichi?” Rantarou read the kanji written on the scrap of paper the next boy in line had passed him. The note was damp with sweat and not very pleasant to receive. Still, Rantarou smiled all the same. “That's a cool name.”However, rather than thanking him for the compliment, red-faced and stammering, Saihara blurted out a very unexpected sentiment instead, “I love you.”
Relationships: Amami Rantarou/Saihara Shuuichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55
Collections: Writing Rainbow Yellow





	Cutting Yellow Cation Tape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Big_bunbun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_bunbun/gifts).



Rantarou didn't know what he had expected, really. The producers had offered up the promise of a hefty check, and that was that. After emerging victor of a horrific killing game, it had been hard for him to imagine that he couldn't handle something so simple as a meet and greet.

The first twenty or so people lined up before the small folding table the bookstore had set up for him had ranged from outstandingly unremarkable to characters he would expressly and on no uncertain terms forbid his younger sisters to ever date.

And then came... “Saihara Shuuichi?” Rantarou read the kanji written on the scrap of paper the next boy in line had passed him. The note was damp with sweat and not very pleasant to receive. Still, Rantarou smiled all the same. “That's a cool name.”

However, rather than thanking him for the compliment, red-faced and stammering, Saihara blurted out a very unexpected sentiment instead, “I love you.”

Rantarou's grin grew strained. “Er, you'd like me to write that on your poster?” he asked, scribbling his own name across the top of the glossy print. He hated the shot they had chosen for it, the pose that the photographer had forced him into far too flirty for his liking. “Present for someone special?”

Saihara shook his head vigorously, placing his hands on the table in order to lean in uncomfortably close until Rantarou could smell the Danganronpa-branded body spray the team had forced him to hawk a few months ago. He supposed that the boy's delicate features—coupled with long lashes topped with what was clearly a copious amount of cheap eyeliner--could be considered handsome, although it was difficult to tell with the way his cap was pulled so low, obscuring part of his face.

“I... I mean _you._ I'm your biggest fan, Amami-kun!”

“Aww geez _,_ I'm flattered!” Rantarou chuckled, surreptitiously attempting to see around Saihara. There were at least thirty more people waiting behind him, and half of them were beginning to shuffle their feet or check their phones.

Oblivious, Saihara continued, “Is it really true that you're coming back for the next season?” _God, where had he heard that?_ Rantarou's fist clenched around the autographing pen. “Because... well... It's because I'm hoping to get chosen for the next season too! I just sent in my audition tape yesterday.” The conspiratorial way Saihara hissed his secret, anyone would think that he had signed himself up for amateur porn instead.

Rantarou wanted to grab the kid by the shirt and yell. Shout, threaten, anything to scare him away from getting caught up in the same slice of pure _hell_ that he had.

There were cameras everywhere. He couldn't.

“I'm afraid I have to keep a tight lid on it about stuff like that!” Rantarou laughed pleasantly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Can't have anyone going around posting spoilers!”

Whether by some miracle—or, more likely intervention by the Danganronpa staff--an announcement came over the loudspeaker that the store would be closing in twenty minutes.

Finally, Saihara relented. “G-good luck, Amami-kun! I'll... I'll be routing for you to win again!”

“You take care now, pal!” Rantarou waved politely as Saihara scurried off.

_He forgot his poster..._

Thirty fake smiles later, and the bookstore had closed for the night, leaving Rantarou to begin his walk home. He had hoped that Saihara would have returned for the poster before he left, but if his so-called 'biggest fan' had continued to skulk around, Rantaro had noticed.

Shifted the rolled-up poster into his underarm, Rantarou stopped to pull his hood up tighter against the late evening chill. Maybe he could sell the poster on Yahoo Auctions when he got home, he thought. Just like the paycheck from the autographing session, the money could be saved aside for his sisters, in order to take care of them should he not make it out of the game second time.

Unfortunately, his plan was soon dashed by a strong breeze kicking up and rudely wresting the poster from his arm, whipping it up into the air, and over a guard rail.

“Shit...” he groaned, jogging over to the rail and peering down toward the riverbank below.

In addition to the water-logged sheet of cardstock floating forlornly toward the rocky bottom, Rantarou spotted something else familiar- a black cap caught up on a bobbing log and its owner crouched on the bank, staring after it.

“You okay down there, buddy?”

“Amami-kun?” Saihara whipped around, and for a moment, Rantarou was frightened that he might fall backward into the water, meeting the same fate as both the poster and hat.

“You, uh, forgot your poster,” Rantarou mentioned, although it was far too late to do anything about it. Even so, he hopped the rail to join Saihara in mourning his lost hat.

“I don't need it,” Saihara said after a few moments of amicable silence had passed, and with it, Rantarou's urge to frighten Saihara away from entering the reality show. He knew when someone wouldn't take no for an answer, a stance he had come to respect in recent times.

“You do look better without it, to be honest with ya,” Rantarou agreed, motioning toward the stuck hat, fluttering against the current, “I can see your eyes now.”

Turning away from the water to get a better look at him, Rantarou was struck by how golden Saihara's eyes were, like the color of honey, sticky and cloying yet addictive all the same.

“I meant... I was talking about the poster.” Saihara's face grew red again, eyes gleaming with a desperate earnestness as he reached out to clasp one of Rantarou's larger hands between both of his own. “I met the real thing today... so I don't need it.”

“...Did you mean what you said before?” Rantarou asked evenly after a pause, doing nothing to pull away from Saihara's grasp. “That you love me?”

Saihara nodded fervently, cowlick bobbing in the wind as he chewed on his lower lip. He was near enough now that Rantarou could see how swollen and chapped it was.

Once the fifty-third season came to a start, Rantarou knew that he would remember none of this. No guilt, no doubt for what he was about to do, even if they were to meet again under less favorable circumstances.

Before he could change his mind, in one swift movement Rantarou had taken hold of Saihara's shoulder, pulling him nearer until their lips locked in a desperate search for one stolen moment of normalcy.


End file.
